Tom Beaulieu

Madam Chair, there will be three or four bundles on the overall plan, Building Canada Plan. In the first bundle, it will be discussed in this session. There is no money in that bundle for the Mackenzie Valley Highway.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To my right is Deputy Minister Russell Neudorf, Department of Transportation. To my left is the assistant deputy minister of the Department of Transportation, Daniel Auger; and to my far right, director of corporate services, Jim Martin, Department of Transportation.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The main money that we hope to spend on the Mackenzie Valley Highway is in a separate proposal to Canada under the national Infrastructure Fund. We are also seeking some money from CanNor, which is another pot of money that’s outside of the O and M that we’re discussing here today.

Like I indicated, we are doing a lot of the legwork, environmental assessment. We’ve looked at some of the roads, some of the planning that’s needed to build the highway to Whati. However, it’s based on whether or not we have the ability to borrow money to build that road. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We may have that information here but it’s a fairly standard amount. Each year we go out, or in blocks of time we go out to tender to maintain all our highways, and the contract to maintain Highway No. 7 would be similar to what has occurred previously. If you give us a minute, perhaps we’re able to find the amount.

We have the amount. It’s $800,000.

We’ve certainly talked about the highway a lot. I can’t give a definite date on how close we are, but we consider that to be one of the roads. We have a few roads right now. We have a proposal into the federal government on the Mackenzie Valley Highway, so we’re looking at that as well as a couple of other all-season roads.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For more detail, I’d ask the deputy minister to provide a response.

This is a committee between the Gwich’in and GNWT. The Premier and the president did sign this memorandum of intent on April 1, 2014. We set up a working group between the Gwich’in, GNWT and the federal government. The intention is to have three people starting at the Gwich’in, three people starting in the GNWT and three people starting with the federal government all at the same time and working in those positions for one year and then they would rotate. We would also make accommodations if any of the Gwich’in people wished to stay exactly where they were after year one. We’re expecting to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The strategy is intended to run from this year, 2015, probably this summer, in around that time. I guess, essentially the strategy is being done in 25 year blocks, NWT Transportation Strategy, so from 1990 to 2015, which is just beginning to end now. But in essence, a strategy does not expire, so if we don’t have the next strategy fully developed, we would just continue with the strategy. But the intention, the plan, I guess, is to complete a strategy every 25 years and look at all of the various modes of transportation that we have in the territory, being highways...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department has quietly spent $12 million on Highway No. 7 to date.

---Laughter

For this coming year, we have $3 million in the capital plan and we’re going to concentrate on that serious area that the Member referred to, kilometres 169 to 170. We’re fixing that area. A lot of that money is going to go to strengthening the road from Liard to approximately where the Nahanni Butte turnoff is, and also there’s some finishing work still to be completed between Liard and the BC border. Thank you.